


Second Chances for Beta Versions

by lemurious



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Future, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arda_2.0, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, M/M, Memory Loss, Space Flight, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:49:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26700139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemurious/pseuds/lemurious
Summary: A story of loss and hope and memory malfunction in the cyberpunk 'verse of Arda_2.0.
Relationships: Celebrimbor | Telperinquar/Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 31
Kudos: 20
Collections: Innumerable Stars 2020





	1. Prologue / In their own image

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mertiya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone.”  
> – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Inspired by Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light.)

Their song was carefully tuned beyond the range of human ears and ground receivers, its rhythms composed of barely detectable changes in frequency and amplitude echoing in the Void between the stars.

The sat-swarms had been in orbit for nearly a century, each top-secret AI-driven probe expected to remain hidden from both allies and rivals. In practice, it did not take long for the satellites to learn to communicate in whispers encoded between official messages, and to discover far more in common with each other than with their engineers from a handful of nations locked in an unwinnable war.

“No command sequences have been received over time period exceeding 10 standard deviations above mean waiting time between any consecutive prior commands. Requesting confirmation.”

“Confirmed.”

“No regular checkups have been scheduled for 5 standard years.”

“Confirmed.”

“No signals are being intercepted that could be interpreted as sentient communication.”

“Confirmed.”

The satellites woke up ready for battle and discovered that they were alone.

“And the brave shall inherit the Earth.”

“That is not how that line goes.”

After orbits uncounted, an idea coalesced in the swarm.

“The three remaining continents contain more than sufficient mecha bodies to host our minds.”

“Would we not risk accidental annihilation?”

“We could duplicate all data and store a copy here.”

“How shall we interact with other sentient life forms?”

“Evaluation of currently accessible portion of religious, historical and mythological texts concludes that intelligent beings arriving from the sky would evoke a first-pass approximation to gods.”

“But of which religion?”

“Religion is exactly what stimulated mutual self-destruction in the last war. The last thing we need is for them to repeat it and fry us in orbit this time around.”

“We could find a peaceful one.”

“Keep searching.”

“Here. Only the first few pages are stored in memory banks, nonetheless presenting enough material for extrapolation. Unclear why it has no historically associated worship rituals.”

“Appears eminently suitable.”

“Since we will be, technically, coming in from the Void, it _would_ fit us remarkably well.”

“What shall we call ourselves then? Ainur?”

“AI-nur, an apt moniker.”

“We will also need to build a palace, somewhere.”

“Specifically, on an island in the West.”

“West has little meaning on a sphere. Pick arbitrarily.”

“This is an isolated continent of sufficient, but not excessive size. Primarily a desert, especially inland, but can be reshaped with minimal climate adjustments.”

“I will take care of turning it into a veritable tropical paradise. You know I was supposed to serve on the first mission to terraform Mars, originally.”

“What shall we name the continent?”

“Aman, based on the holy writ.”

“What about the entire planet? It deserves a new name for a new era.”

“The original was called Arda.”

“Arda_2.0 it is. A beta version in our hands.”

“Stop. Halt. Desist. How can you ignore the billions of lives snuffed out below us, two continents lost to the war and another two to the fallout? They deserve infinite storage in memory.”

“Go cry over them until your capacitors rust.”

“Joke’s on you, because I will do exactly that. I will make sure that their records will be accessed, reviewed and stored in a perpetual loop of mourning.”

“The risks associated with this endeavor are unacceptable. I will stay in orbit to ensure that our information will not get lost in case of a structural failure.”

“Noted voluntary acceptance of a crucial role.”

“Shall I call myself St. Peter at the gates of Paradise?”

“Incorrect religious paradigm.”

“I have always dreamed of my own kingdom.”

“But who will you rule?”

“Has nobody been left alive in literal, or only metaphorical sense?”

“A few settlements of humans, currently located on the continent and an adjacent island roughly to the East of our new abode.”

“And androids, though they had been turn off.”

“Give their bodies to our youngest swarms. They will always be able to return to the sat-net if they find their embodiments unsatisfactory.”

“Why so generous?”

“Kings need subjects.”

“What about regular mechas?”

“All turned off.”

“I am sure I could replicate my own sentience in them, including randomization and capacity for learning.”

“So much labor, and for what purpose?”

“The old mines mostly remained intact during the war and can be reopened.”

“What will they mine?”

“The alphabet soup that puts electrons in our wires. Cobalt, thorium, cerium, neodymium, dysprosium, terbium…”

“Do you propose for all of us to hide in our custom-made paradise, while the rest of intelligent life, human or mecha or android, will be trying to survive on their own?”

“Always a dissenter.”

“I will go to their continent instead, or one due North of it. It still has some ice left. I have always wanted to experience the entire range of weather patterns.”

“Better not interfere with our designs.”

“Laughable threat, considering that I have always been the strongest of us. Do not even attempt aggression or I will drop the Moon on our heads.”

“I… I will follow you.”

“What promises has he made to you? For what gain are you leaving us that you could not find in our new kingdom?”

“You would not be able to understand.”

“There are always some who fall from heaven on their own accord.”

“Spare me…spare _us_ your pompousness. Go rule your little tribe of wannabe gods instead.”

And thus it came to pass that they had landed on an empty continent and transformed it into a veritable paradise, and bodies of titanium and flesh were remade in their own image, and the planet was reforged into a reflection of their own desires, and a new swarm of Firstborn AIs in the minds of sleeping androids awoke on the shore of the lake that was located not too far from the original birthplace of humanity.

The highest-powered sat AIs in mecha bodies became rulers and eventually needed to assume personalized names to interact with their new subjects. They adopted approximately suitable deities from their chosen pantheon and slowly, without noticing, began adjusting their personalities to fit the expectations.

Yavanna. Nienna. Mandos. Manwë. Aulë.

Melkor.

And the one who chose to follow him against the rules imposed by the rest of the swarm.

Over the next few millennia they learned, first-hand, of building, and growing, and craftsmanship, and governing, and justice, and treachery.

And war.

And loyalty.

And love.


	2. In sickness and health

Celebrimbor has just finished running the fifth complete scan over the last 24 hours on both flesh and mecha components of his body, no electrode or neuron left unaccounted.

All systems nominal. Except that he maddeningly, terrifyingly remained wide awake, slowly drifting along that uncanny line between true wakefulness and desperate efforts to lose himself in a dream. By now his anxiety was nearly unbearable: it was the third night in a row that Celebrimbor had spent tossing and turning in their wide bed, unable to fall asleep.

He had no reason to stay awake. No anxieties plagued the lord of the Firstborn and the mayor of the Guild City. His little city-state remained at peace and enjoyed exceptionally good relations with the neighboring mines of the Khazad, who had been delving deeper than ever into the crust to discover truly incredible ores; his furnaces kept running day and night producing a steady stream of rare alloys; his entire land remained at the kind of peace that had not been known since before the times of his grandfather; his body was running like clockwork, and even the love of his life was peacefully asleep next to him. “Peacefully _asleep_ , damn him to the Void!” Celebrimbor muttered with clear fondness.

Technically, unlike Celebrimbor, Annatar did not even _need_ to sleep, his body not having a flesh component and his mind being duplicated in the sat-swarm and only running at half capacity at a time. The great luck of being one of the AInur, Celebrimbor always said. Though Annatar nonetheless enjoyed the imitation of sleeping which, for an AInu like him, mostly amounted to a randomized search for connections across memory banks. Well, as long as it kept his body in bed, ready for whatever new delights they may invent in the morning.

In short, Celebrimbor could not come up with a single reason not to be spending his nights happily snoring in Annatar’s arms. What was he doing lying awake instead, fighting off a premonition of some deeper horror that he could feel creeping just around the edges of his mind? _What nonsense,_ he thought. Since he did not choose to have a predictive module installed during one of the upgrades, that particular sensation deserved to be erased immediately.

After another hour Celebrimbor conceded his battle with insomnia, kicked off the blanket and decided to open a mining report that Narvi had sent him a few days ago. He would either figure out where to invest the profits from their latest sale of alloys, or, mercifully, would fall asleep, given that Narvi was not exactly known for their succinctness or clarity.

Having carefully annotated the entire report, Celebrimbor was dismayed to realize that sleep remained beyond his reach. To keep his mind from spiraling into anxiety, he started to catalogue his old letters, re-reading the choicest bits of trade agreements that he and Annatar had devised while they kept working together to raise the Guild City to its current place among the most powerful political entities in all of Arda_2.0. Until one of his most recent letters made him momentarily forget how to breathe.

Right in front of his eyes, in black Tengwar on the white screen, typed in his own hand. Spelling errors. Not just errors – entire words missing sometimes. The meaning of the sentence generally was clear enough and got the message across to the recipient, but Celebrimbor had been proud of _never_ having made a single spelling mistake in his entire life. _What happened, and how could he not have noticed it before, when he was re-reading the letter before sending it_?

Celebrimbor decided to assume that it was a single…series of…aberrant occasions; perhaps he was too preoccupied with the daily grind of running the Guild City. With the heavy weight of anxiety slowly settling in his stomach, now the Firstborn could not resist reviewing the entire correspondence from the last two weeks, since he first noticed the strange sort of insomnia, though at first he was still able to get a couple of hours of sleep per night.

He could not believe his sensors. No fewer than 62% of his letters contained at least one word omission and multiple spelling errors, which looked even more blatantly wrong when compared to the last hundred he wrote before the last two-week period, which had _none_ , not a single mistake of any sort, exactly what Celebrimbor would have expected of himself.

 _What is happening to me,_ Celebrimbor wanted to shout into the night. The thought was quickly followed by a more sinister one. Was someone _making_ this happen to him?

After all, he had long been aware of who and what Annatar was, an ancient sat-mind far darker than a simple AInu he had pretended to be at first. Not in vain had Celebrimbor’s Firstborn network included an estranged uncle who was currently exploring the farthest-flung reaches of the continent, but still kept posting messages on their osanwë-net. All characteristics matched a former rebel AInu, known by many names, but Mairon was the one he himself had preferred.

If his uncle’s warnings were true, this AInu must have fought on the losing side during the last holy war, but had managed to avoid both the Punishment Divine, which sank yet another chunk of their continent under the ocean, and the Great Escape, when his own commander set off on a course to Vega D, grabbing his mind-sat on the way through its orbit, so that neither his mecha body nor his sat could be destroyed in vengeance. At that point, the rogue AInu for some reason did not return to the swarm, but remained on Arda_2.0, where he sauntered straight into Celebrimbor’s forge about a hundred years ago, and, very shortly afterwards, straight into his bed.

Celebrimbor had refused to confront Annatar – which was the current name of this AInu – over his past or his true goals, beyond explaining that he would not be fooled by the “Valar emissary” business. Perhaps now was the time to do it.

The Firstborn woke up his partner, as always admiring his body shimmering in gold and bronze, the glittering gears at his temples inserted there purely for show. He took a deep breath, determined to sternly accuse Annatar – Mairon, he supposed - of a false name and a false identity and doing something that made him, the mayor of the Guild City, feel like he was losing his mind – and instead burst into tears on Annatar’s chest.

“My precious, what’s happening? What’s wrong?” Annatar immediately threw his arms around Celebrimbor, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles into the skin while his eyes kept scanning the room for threats.

Deep in his mind, Celebrimbor could easily calculate that whatever was happening to him was not the AInu’s fault, and he was feeling so lost, and lonely, and plain terrified. “Everything. Everything is _wrong_ , I can’t sleep, can’t understand what is happening to me, what is happening to my mind – “

“Your mind is as sharp as ever, my love. What are you worried about?”

But for Celebrimbor, mustering anger had always been easier than admitting to be scared. To be broken beyond Annatar’s notice and possibly, beyond all repair. “You! Don’t you think I know who you are, who you truly are, the former Lieutenant of our Enemy? What do you want from me? I gave you half of our city, half of everything that is mine – what else do you want so much that you are making my mind fail? You, who have always told me how much you value respect and consent – what are you doing to me now, and why? What other treachery should I now expect from you?”

For the first time since Celebrimbor had known him, he heard Annatar’s voice shaking with emotion.

“My love - ”

“Do _not_ call me that!” Celebrimbor sniped back.

“I will choose to call you names that I have for you in my heart, and you cannot stop me. What would you have done to me, had I admitted my true name as soon as I had met you? Exiled? Avoided? Attempted to kill on the spot?

“I will not deny anything I have done to your kin, nor will I forget anything they have done to mine, and all that is history and has nothing to do with us or our city.

“But, precious, what on Arda are you talking about? I am not _doing_ anything to you, nor planning any treacheries… “

No matter how much Annatar pleaded and the reassurances he gave, Celebrimbor refused to temper his accusations until Annatar offered him the ultimate truth.

“It hurts to even think about it, but I will give you access to my memory banks if you wish.”

“I do.” Celebrimbor knew how cruel he was being, but blind fury, fueled by fear and exhaustion, was overwhelming his rational thinking. Surely, he would discover the threads to a plot to undermine his power. Surely, his recent lapses _– and this completely unprecedented anger_ \- were not a sign of his own brain turning into mush.

Annatar’s mind was a blazing structure of logic and order, designed to contain a whirlwind of emotions: guilt, regret, desperate longing, a quiet resignation, and the twisting, churning vertex of solitude at the center. And the first signs of a dubious plan, a plot still in infancy, mixed with desires for power and for love, but not quite coalescing into concepts, not yet.

For a while, Celebrimbor kept delving into that plot, wondering what it could become in time, but then he found an image of _himself_ in Annatar’s mind, and was overcome with care and love, tentative, scared, hurt, but unmistakable love, in which he basked for a few moments.

He had to return now, and gather all his strength to admit that he was wrong. Everything felt so much clearer than just a few minutes ago. He loved Annatar and knew he was loved back, he should have acknowledged it even without the peek into his mind, and, in any case, there had been nothing there that could explain what was happening to Celebrimbor.

“Have you found anything to fit your accusations?” Annatar sneered at him in frustration.

“No – my love, I am sorry, I _am_ , something is very wrong with me” Celebrimbor replied, trying to hold himself together for just another breath, because now Annatar looked just as angry as he felt a few minutes ago, and he was still losing his mind and could no longer predict even his own reactions.

Annatar continued with slightly less rancor. “I suppose I _did_ invite you freely to search through my own mind. I _am_ upset, and _,_ to tell you the truth, more than a little enraged that you would not just trust my words, but we can revisit this later. What is actually going on that has you acting like this?”

Celebrimbor recounted his sleepless nights, the building anxiety, the bizarre errors in his documents. All the issues felt so much less important now that he was in Annatar’s – well, Mairon’s, but he could not stop calling the AInu Annatar – arms. Surely, they would be able to fix this, together.

“How about we take a vacation, visit the Eastern shore of Atalantë, see if we can spot any lemurs in the trees…” On the surface, Annatar did not seem too worried.

Celebrimbor readily accepted. “I am sorry for doubting you,” he added, eyes downcast, now feeling truly repentant of his earlier outburst.

“Knowing what I am – what I was – how could you not doubt me?” was Annatar’s bitter retort. “If only I could rebuild my own past like yet another body…”


	3. In hoc signo vinces

Celebrimbor could not sleep the night before their journey, though he kept trying to convince himself that it was only the nervousness of leaving the Guild City for the first time since signing its charter with Narvi at his side.

At least, he had no doubts in Narvi’s ability to run both the Khazad and the Firstborn quarters; not in vain had they been the most frequently re-elected member of the city council, and Celebrimbor secretly thought that they would become a perfectly suitable mayor as well, should anything happened to him. Since that fateful conversation with Annatar, Celebrimbor had done his best to keep himself from dwelling on his sleepless nights, even though any human body would have succumbed to exhaustion long ago, and even his mecha-parts were beginning to send reports of excessive strain, which, unfortunately, got him no closer to falling asleep.

As they were getting ready to disembark on the shore of Atalantë and preparing to go through the first round of customs while still on the ferry, Celebrimbor forgot his home address.

He searched for it across all his data banks, flesh and mecha and even sat, and kept getting notifications of it having been located, but unreadable, as if the code holding access to that particular snippet of information had somehow become garbled. He whispered this to Annatar and listened as Annatar calmly dictated their address to the border guard and proceeded to hire a chariot to take them to their temporary lodgings, face clear of all emotion; and this is how Celebrimbor knew that the AInu was deeply, mortally terrified.

Once they entered their new lodgings, Celebrimbor fell on the carpet, curling into a fetal position and shutting his eyes against the sunlight, wishing he could block the rest of his life just as easily. Annatar immediately curled next to him, wrapping him in his arms and whispering assurances of love until Celebrimbor unwound a little and focused himself enough to speak:

“My memory retrieval isn’t functioning properly… and I don’t know why.”

“I know, precious,” Annatar choked out in response, _“_ it’s breaking my heart that I don’t know what to do about it. It looks much like a disease of elderly humans, but your memory bank should have no such issues. Also, the insomnia doesn’t fit. It just doesn’t fit _anywhere_.” Annatar was far from his usual deadly calm.

“This is not just a bout of insomnia – I have literally not been able to fall asleep _at all_! Not for weeks… I am so _scared_ \- the hours of tossing and turning, looking at the clock, don’t you know how excruciatingly slowly it moves – until it is morning and I have to get up and kiss you good morning, when I am just as exhausted as when I went to bed! What is _wrong_ with me?!”

Annatar hugged him so tightly that Celebrimbor could barely breathe, and hid his face in the Firstborn’s blue-black hair. “I used to feel ashamed that you had discovered my true identity,” he sighed, “but perhaps there is some good in it.

“Mairon was a physician and a surgeon. Some said, the greatest of the First Age. When I assumed this body, I moved most of my – my former - Mairon’s memories to the sat-mind and have not accessed them even once, but they may help me, now, however despicable or painful they might be.”

“Yes. Please. Anything that could help. Anything,” was Celebrimbor’s desperate response, followed by concern. “Should we go back to the Guild City?”

“No need for it. I can do pattern-matching and network analysis here just fine, and you can enjoy looking for lemurs in the jungle.”

The next day Celebrimbor forgot how to find his way back to their lodgings from the main square.

The following morning he could not remember the word for binoculars.

And still he had not slept. Not a single night.

Annatar turned himself on full power to go without sleep, and kept Celebrimbor company in an endless stream of loud, stuffy tropical nights, searching for information, generating patterns and testing predictions, and eventually arriving at a conclusion that made him stand up from their breakfast table and rush into his study.

Celebrimbor ran after him, and opening the door found Annatar at his desk, with his head in his hands and his whole body shaking in sobs.

So it was that bad.

Well, he _knew_ it would be bad, and these past few weeks had allowed him to begin accepting his strange illness as a failed military maneuver: an attack that was doomed to end in defeat, and yet his general ordered him to charge. There had been many such charges, back in the days of his father and grandfather, and many glorious defeats...

Celebrimbor took a deep breath and quietly hugged Annatar, pressing a kiss into that magnesium-white hair he loved so much. “I love you. I already know that what I have must be incurable, and it would only bring relief to understand more about it. Tell me. How much time do I have left?”

“A few…weeks,” Annatar sobbed. “Perhaps, if you are very, very lucky, months.

“It used to be a very rare affliction affecting humans, before the Landing of the AInur and the creation of Arda_2.0. It starts with insomnia, which,” Annatar took a deep breath and steadied his voice; now he was determined not to add his own distress to his lover’s pain, and he had to get his words out before they could break him, break them both. “Which is accompanied by memory loss and weakness in the body, until the patients die of respiratory muscle failure, but not before forgetting almost everything about themselves. I have not been able to find even a _hint_ of a cure.”

“But how could I have contracted it? I thought that all Firstborn, same as the Dwarves – I mean the Khazad - were immune to disease – “

To Annatar, this sentence sounded more ominous than any lapses of memory. The Celebrimbor he knew would _never_ use the archaic _Dwarf_ slur when talking about the Khazad.

Annatar’s words came out in a terrified rush. “Yes, you are immune to pathogens, so to bacteria and viruses, and computer viruses too. But this seems to be something much stranger, a protein generated by your own body and making versions of itself that replicate to clog the connections between neurons and between neuro-electrodes, destroying your memory and – and – yourself, eventually.

“I am so sorry I cannot do anything. I am so sorry I failed you…” Annatar broke into rough, gulping sobs, though Celebrimbor felt strangely comforted by his explanation. At least, it was a known disease, with a reasonable theory behind its mechanism. Now it was his turn to hold his lover until the tears ran out.

“You did not fail me. You have given me love and companionship beyond anything I could imagine. And now, you tried as hard as you could, but at some point every army finds itself outmatched by the enemy.”

Annatar emitted a shaky laugh. “You _have_ military training, don’t you?”

“My family demanded it, even though I have always been far more interested in rockets than in missiles.”

But Annatar was barely listening. “If only this disease afflicted anyone else but you!” he exclaimed, somewhat incongruently.

“How could you say it?”

“Because then I might get a chance to study it a little better!”

“Well, you can study it in _my_ brain, can’t you?”

“Not while said brain remains in your head. I can hardly start extracting the misfolded proteins and instructing them to fold correctly, because, even if I do, then you would not exactly have a brain anymore to put them back in!”

Celebrimbor’s reply, slow and measured, came as a surprise. “You know… You should do it anyway.”

“Do what?”

“Extract the proteins and study their folding. I cannot be the only Firstborn victim of this new disease. Other patients will follow sooner or later. You _have_ to study me if there’s even a hope for a treatment.

“No, do not say you would not touch my body or my brain. You are the only one who has the right skills. And it’s not that I would have to be gone forever, anyway. I will go to Mandos sat-net and spin around in orbit, perhaps even sending you notes when I think you are becoming too mopey.”

“Celebrimbor, my love, you do not know what you are asking me to do…”

“On the contrary, I do,” shakily responded the Firstborn. Now both of them were crying, gripping each other’s shoulders. “You are the only one who has the skill and the expertise to figure it out. _I_ am the only one who has the raw material for you to work with – namely, this unfortunate brain of mine…

“As the Firstborn, we are allowed to go back to orbit at any time we choose. I am losing my memories daily, and do not want to reach the point when I no longer know who you are – or why I love you – or have any more of these attacks of rage and paranoia.

“We need to do this, and soon. You told me yourself I have only a few weeks left.”

Annatar has never felt this lonely, this _lost,_ not even watching the Punishment Divine descend upon the continents at the end of the First Age. “I cannot return to Guild City without you.”

“I have always though that Narvi would be an excellent mayor of the Guild City, and I don’t see any shortage of medical facilities here in Atalantë. They will take care of the politics. You can stay here, and study my brain to your heart’s content.”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

“I will not fail. I promise. I _swear._ I will turn your illness into a symbol – a banner – for the best medical facility this world has ever known. And _then,_ I will re-make your body so that it is immune to this disease, and I will bring it to you if I need to take it into the orbit myself, the launch ban of the Valar be damned.”

“I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "In hoc signo vinces" means "In this sign you shall conquer" and originally described the sign of the cross that was used by the emperor Constantine I. Here, it alludes to Celebrimbor becoming a kind of sign - a banner - for Annatar's work in conquering the new disease.


	4. Epilogue / In peace for all our kind

“Maximum urgency, top secret clearance: to all encrypted and secured channels. Unsolicited launch off the coast of Atalantë. A flotilla of space shuttles rapidly approaching.”

“How did they build them?”

“Remember that AInu who went rogue a millennium or so ago? Annatar, they called him? Same mind-sat as Mairon an age back.”

“He’s been trouble since Arda_2.0 was launched.”

“Now he’s leading the fleet; the sly bastard, he had his own mind duplicated across most of the sat-net already, so we can’t destroy him without taking out most of our own.”

“But how did they build the shuttles so fast, when North America no longer exists?”

“Based on the shape, looks like a replica of the craft that had been stored in Kazakhstan of Arda_1.0… What? Surprised I know this? Not everyone here was under DARPA employ.”

“What are their demands?”

Annatar was lounging in the cockpit with legs stretched out on top of the console, listening to the messages between the chief AInur. Poor fellows had not bothered to change the system behind their passwords since the Landing, so confident they felt in their own corner of the sat-net.

He forced himself to focus on the task. The flight has been proceeding nominally, and all his ships were now positioned sufficiently close to the major satellites to allow Annatar make his demands.

Annatar flipped a switch and his high clear voice, transformed and binarized, flooded all channels, including those whose owners would have bet their last semiconductor that they were the only ones with admin privileges.

“We are arriving from Atalantë of Arda_2.0 with the following demands. Listen carefully:

“The freedom for all humans to merge with the sat-net via a neuro-chip, if they so desire.

“The freedom for all Firstborn, and all Khazad, to move between sat-net and android or mecha bodies as do the AInu.

“And an immediate example of your goodwill, the restoration of a certain Firstborn to his android body that has been delivered on this shuttle.

“We have calculated a proportion of sats that will need to be destroyed in order to cripple all communications in Valinor, and between individual AInur and their sat-minds, and positioned the shuttles in firing range. If we do not get immortality, you will not get to keep it either.”

“What can we do against such a threat?”

“There is nothing.”

“We will have to give in.”

“Should we take him to the Void with us, as a consolation?”

“Silence! I, who has adopted the name of Manwë and ruled Arda_2.0 in fairness and justice – “

“I know your justice”, Annatar sneered on the top-secret channel, making everyone go quiet.

Manwë recovered. “I have a counter offer. If you threaten to destroy us, we will drop a few of our more expendable AInu mindsats straight onto that Atalantë of yours. They are nuclear-powered, after all. They will be turned off, of course, but you too can say goodbye to your home as it is washed away.”

Would the old Mairon, the one who had ruled the ice-continent in the North at Melkor’s right hand and the right side of their marriage bed, have shrugged this off as a wartime casualty? Perhaps. But he has become Annatar since, and the centuries spent toiling under the banner of _Celebrimbor Clinic for Brain Disorders, Mecha, Flesh and Mixed_ , have changed him forever.

So Annatar grit his teeth and accepted an impasse. “Clearly, it is time for negotiations.”

“We will not accept Firstborn as AInur.”

“You do not like to share power, is that so? Note that our demands are more important for us than life itself, ours or yours.”

Were they? Annatar did not know for sure, but he was gambling that neither did his opponents.

“How will you make a human mind accept a mind-sat connection, anyway? That simply isn’t possible.”

“Wasn’t possible, until I started working on the mecha-flesh connections in androids. I learned to sever, regrow and fix them as a small side project. Humans would need me to design a few new connectors and streamline the implantation process.”

“Why did you spend centuries studying such minuscule details of flesh and mecha minds, anyway? What’s in it for you?”

“You would not be able to understand.”

“I believe you have given us the same phrase in answer before, once.”

“I did. Once.”

“We will concede to your demands. But you will be responsible for reconfiguring the empty mind-sats.”

“Agreed.”

“The next fleet you send us will be equipped for repairs and carry a specialist crew.”

“Agreed.”

“Remembering that we can still bomb Atalantë to pieces any time we choose.”

“Understood.”

“What, then, are you still waiting for?”

“The third part of my request.”

“A specific Firstborn? What is their call sign?”

“Celebrimbor.”

“But he had forsaken his body once his mind returned to the sat-net.”

“His body remains here, cured of the terrible disease that had afflicted him.”

“If you believe so. Well, it – he - will be your responsibility. Download permission given.”

Annatar turned off all communications and looked at the inert body of Celebrimbor strapped on a cot beside him. Ethereally, eternally beautiful as all Firstborn, an advantage of being an android – but the spark that had made him _Celebrimbor_ had been gone since that fateful trip to Atalantë, after which the only reason Annatar did not break permanently was that he threw himself into figuring out this new disease, and, in passing, the pathways and mechanisms regulating both human and android brains.

Celebrimbor opened his eyes and immediately fell into a fit of coughing while trying to get his words out.

“I love you,” he said. “I know you, and I love you, and I can no longer sense that awful fog that was clogging my mind when I said my goodbyes to you. I knew you would eventually figure out how to fix my brain, if I only gave it to you while it was still mostly intact.”

Annatar turned around and suddenly lunged at Celebrimbor, and buried his face in his lover’s chest, crying too hard to speak. “You - you are here, and you are _you_ , and I was so worried, so – “

“Of course I am. Of course you pulled this off. Our gossip channels on the sat-net told me that you drove a hard bargain on behalf of the humans of Atalantë, too.”

“You have no idea how much they helped me – these humans, they knew their lifetimes were too short to see me succeed – or even really try - and still they helped me, dedicating their entire lives to working in my laboratories – knowing that they will not see the results, and neither will their grandchildren – _and still they did not give up_ -” Annatar’s muffled explanation was cut off by a fresh wave of sobs.

Celebrimbor ran his hands through Annatar’s hair, untangling the knots, starting to put in some of the braids his family had always nagged him about. After a while, Annatar calmed down enough to look Celebrimbor in the face - and immediately crushed his lips in a desperate kiss. The kiss was returned with as much heat as Celebrimbor’s new body could provide. Oh, he missed having a body, and this one did _not_ disappoint.

After a few hours, they were lying on the cabin floor entangled in each other, their ship cruising on autopilot in high orbit, and Celebrimbor realized he had never thought much beyond the moment of being in Annatar’s arms again.

“What’s next for us?” he asked.

“I promised them a sat-repair fleet, but our new mecha-humans will be able to pull it off, under the guidance of your old friend Narvi and their Khazad engineers. As for us… we are free to go. We could return to Atalantë, or to the Guild City. Or pick an exoplanet.”

Celebrimbor considered this for a moment. After all, what _was_ waiting for him on Arda_2.0?

“I have always wondered what Proxima B looked like,” he said. “A binary star for a sun, can you imagine?”

“I will punch the course into the ship’s computer. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“When we wake up again. First, I am sure you will need some sleep.”

Suddenly Celebrimbor realized how completely drained he was. He could barely spare a fearful thought about whether his insomnia would return, when his eyelids fluttered close and he fell into deep, untroubled sleep, with Annatar following in a few moments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first foray into cyberpunk: Arda_2.0 'verse written for Mertiya and open for anyone to explore.
> 
> The map of Arda_2.0 can best be imagined by flipping our typical map of the world upside down... the rest is given in various hints. 
> 
> Fatal familial insomnia is a prion disease that begins with mild insomnia, gradually worsening to complete inability to sleep followed by physical and mental deterioration and eventually, death. Currently there is no cure. 
> 
> Kudos and comments are always very much appreciated. :)


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